Concateno's drug and alcohol testing expert leads workshop at Getting it right for every family conference in Edinburgh

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) April 6, 2011 -- Concateno, Europe’s most experienced drug and alcohol testing provider, will be joining Adam Ingram MSP at a national conference focusing on parental substance misuse.

The conference, Getting it right for every family, to be held in Edinburgh on March 8, will provide much-needed support and advice for social workers to support children living with parents addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Getting it right for every child is a national initiative designed to help all professionals supporting children and young people in Scotland. Its aim is to implement a collective, overarching methodology to help children affected by parental substance misuse.

Minister for Children and Early Years, Adam Ingram MSP, will provide a policy overview to outline the progress Scotland has made so far in work to protect at risk families – cementing the government’s commitment to this issue.

Concateno’s specialist Child Protection division TrichoTech, will be leading a workshop to educate child protection professionals about best practice in parental drug and alcohol testing.

Working with local authorities throughout Scotland, Concateno is well placed to provide vital support to child protection officers, having assisted with over 11,500 drug and alcohol cases of parental drug misuse in the UK in 2010, and partnering local authorities and family drug courts for many years.

“We are delighted to see parental drug misuse at the forefront of the government’s agenda,” said Liam Feasey. “It is vital child protection professionals are equipped with the right knowledge to choose and implement the most appropriate and effective drug and alcohol testing to protect children. We will be outlining the best practice in parental drug testing to ensure professionals know how to do this sensitively and effectively to help the lives of children affected by parental drug and alcohol misuse.”

He added: “Testing enables social workers to make informed decisions on the protection, health and welfare of children affected by parental drug and alcohol abuse and recent high-profile instances in Scotland such as the Brandon Muir case prove how vital these tests could be.”

The conference will be held at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Edinburgh on March 8, 2011.

Ends

For more information regarding Concateno, please contact:

Carrie Lowe / Lyndsay Scanlan

Telephone: +44 (0)1962 893 893

Mobile: +44 (0)7554 014 188

Email: carrie.lowe@concateno.com / lyndsay.scanlan@concateno.com

Concateno – global drug testing services

Informed testing for informed decisions, when it matters most

Concateno (www.concateno.com brings together Europe’s strongest and most experienced drug and alcohol testing organisations and over 60 years of collected expertise. It offers an unparalleled breadth of advisory services and testing capabilities – spanning laboratory, point of care tests and all sample types for any biological specimen, including urine, oral fluids, hair and sweat.

Concateno’s 400 employees perform and deliver more than 10 million tests annually, supported by a global network of 600 sample collection officers, trained in-house in chain-of-custody procedures. Together, they conduct testing for approximately 8,500 clients in 130 countries around the world across all industries, healthcare and government bodies.

Concateno’s dedicated divisions specialise in: Child Protection, Clinical Diagnostics, Criminal Justice, Employee Services, Healthcare and Maritime.

Quality is assured by the highest levels of accreditation, supported by expert and responsive customer service. Concateno’s three UK laboratories are audited and accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) to the international standard ISO/IEC 17025 for the testing for substance misuse in hair, oral fluids and urine, respectively. Laboratory products and point of care test products are manufactured within ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 13485:2003 certified facilities. The company is also subject to a range of external quality assurance programmes, including UKNEQAS, IIP and CAP (US scheme).

In August 2009, Concateno became a subsidiary of Alere Inc., formerly known as Inverness Medical Innovations, Inc. (NYSE: ALR).

About Alere

By developing new capabilities in near-patient diagnosis, monitoring and health management, Alere Inc. (www.alere.com), formerly known as Inverness Medical Innovations, Inc., enables individuals to take charge of improving their health and quality of life at home. Alere’s global leading products and services, as well as its new product development efforts, focus on cardiology, women’s health, infectious disease, oncology and toxicology. Alere is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.

For more information please visis: http://www.concateno.com/

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